On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 05:50:08PM -0800, Josh Triplett wrote:
> > Given that half of the packages does that in the postinst, that's a lot
> > to change. Until they are all changed, that just makes this change
> > totally impossible.
>
> Fair enough; that does seem like the biggest issue. Would you consider
> this change if those packages did so? Most packages don't do so by
> hand, so fixing the various package-building helper packages would get
> most of the way there.
Probably not, I personally don't see the point of changing libc-bin to a
recommends. It's going to cause to many problems, for so little gain.
> (Also briefly entertaining the notion of having some kind of divertable
> ldconfig -> /bin/true link. :) There's also the long-standing
> discussion about triggerizing ldconfig, though I realize that proves
> fairly intricate.)
>
> > > /usr/bin/catchsegv
> >
> > Ok
> >
> > > /usr/bin/getconf
> >
> > Required by POSIX
> >
> > > /usr/bin/getent
> > > /usr/bin/iconv
> >
> > Required by POSIX
> >
> > > /usr/bin/ldd
> >
> > Ok
> >
> > > /usr/bin/localedef
> > > /usr/bin/locale
> >
> > Required by POSIX
> >
> > > /usr/bin/tzselect
> > > /usr/bin/rpcinfo
> > > /usr/bin/zdump
> >
> > Ok
> >
> > > None required for a running system, just generally useful.
> >
> > As said above, most of them are need for POSIX compliance, they have to
> > stay on the system.
>
> I had no idea. That does seem to argue for the "Essential: yes" you
> suggest below, in which case reversing the dependency seems like the
> best solution.
>
> > > So, in general, nothing in libc-bin has to exist for the system to work,
> > > and only one thing (ldconfig) needs some extra care to make sure the
> > > system can cope without its presence.
> >
> > Half of the tool are necessary for POSIX compliance. Also libc-bin 2.13
> > now provides a C.UTF-8 locale for Debian Policy compliance.
>
> Oh, awesome. I had no idea. Thank you very much, I look forward to
> that.
>
> Any straightforward way for a script (.bashrc, for instance) to detect
> the existence of C.UTF-8 in order to use it in preference to en_US.UTF-8
> if present?
I have nothing ready, but you can probably try to set the locale, and
look for errors.
> > While I agree it's possible to run a half-broken system without libc-bin,
> > that doesn't mean you just want it to be recommended. libc-bin is less
> > than 750kB when installed, if you really want to gain space, I would
> > suggest you to start by looking at essential packages (or their
> > dependencies) taking a few MB.
> >
> > That's simply a wontfix for now, just to leave you the right to answer.
> > Otherwise I would just close this bug. Seriously if you want to make so
> > small system that you don't want to install libc-bin, just have a look
> > at emdebian or other solutions.
>
> Might you consider moving the manpages to glibc-doc or similar, perhaps?
No, that's against Policy 12.1.
--
Aurelien Jarno GPG: 1024D/F1BCDB73
aurelien@aurel32.net http://www.aurel32.net